The Complete National Geographic on a hard drive

You can now clear your bookshelves and closets of all those dusty National Geographic magazines without guilt. The Complete National Geographic contains every NG issue since 1888 digitally reproduced in high resolution on a 160-GB hard drive. That's every National Geographic article and advertisement, and thousands of photographs—from 1888 through 2008.

Product info from National Geographic: The collection has an advanced interface to explore a topic, search for photographs, browse the globe, or wander on your own expedition. Users can access all of the maps, photos, and magazine issues on one 3" x 5" external hard drive, which requires only a USB connection (USB cable included). National Geographic has left plenty of hard disk space to accommodate future upgrades and approximately 100GB of hard disk space for personal use. $199.95

Comments

I have to say this would be really cool to own. I'm not going to lay out the cash, but it is a great idea. I am sentimental about books, magazines and catalogs, but one location with a search feature would be really cool to own.

The DVD version currently goes through 2008. Obviously, it is not updatable as the hard disk version would be, but it is available at a number of places for less than the $200. I have used a friend's earlier version (set through 2006) and found it pretty handy for researching for trips and for talks.

Now, I wonder if NGS would let me switch my subscription from the paper version to a monthly update to the hard disk - SAVE A FOREST! But then, I wouldn't be able to donate the old issues to the local grade school for the kids to cut apart for projects.

With newspapers going to virtually all on-line versions and magazines like Rock and Ice having added stuff online, maybe electronic copies are the wave of the future, with paper vanishing. I still like the feel of a book in my hands to read, something reading from the computer screen or Kindle just doesn't offer. I also enjoy a hand-written letter much more than email, though I confess I haven't hand-written a letter myself in at least 10 years, and haven't even typed or computer-printed a paper letter in 4 or 5 years (except for the set of nasty exchanges with a certain unscrupulous sat-TV company who made a grossly unfair charge to my credit charge and still refused to back down).